1776 – American Revolutionary War: The first amphibious landing of the United States Marine Corps begins the Battle of Nassau.
1820 – The U.S. Congress passes the Missouri Compromise.
1857 – Second Opium War: France and the United Kingdom declare war on China.
1885 – The American Telephone & Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York.
1904 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a sound recording of a political document, using Thomas Edison’s phonograph cylinder.
1910 – Rockefeller Foundation: John D. Rockefeller Jr. announces his retirement from managing his businesses so that he can devote all his time to philanthropy.
1923 – TIME magazine is published for the first time.
1924 – The fourteenth-century Islamic caliphate is abolished when Caliph Abdülmecid II of the Ottoman Empire is deposed. The last remnant of the old regime gives way to the reformed Turkey of Kemal Atatürk.
1938 – Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.
1980 – The USS Nautilus is decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register.
1991 – An amateur video captures the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.
2005 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly an airplane non-stop around the world solo without refueling.
Births
1831 – George Pullman, American engineer and businessman, founded the Pullman Company (d. 1897)
1847 – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-American engineer and academic, invented the telephone (d. 1922)
1882 – Charles Ponzi, Italian businessman (d. 1949)
Deaths
1703 – Robert Hooke, English architect and philosopher (b. 1635)
1706 – Johann Pachelbel, German organist and composer (b. 1653)
1959 – Lou Costello, American actor and comedian (b. 1906)
1966 – William Frawley, American actor and vaudevillian (b. 1887)
1987 – Danny Kaye, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1911)
1993 – Albert Sabin, Polish-American physician and virologist (b. 1906)
